any ideas?

Raeyas_mommy · Sep 6, 2010 12:26PM

Hi all

I was hoping I could gain some thoughts/ideas from you.

R*** is 5 weeks old and a contented generally chilled little lady, she settles well and will happily spend abit of time in her rocker or just lying down.
I dont tend to rock her or walk the room with her as it's not been necessary and plus I dont want her to need rocking at 2am lol
dont get me wrong there are the times when she wants to be held and comforted and naturally I will happily do so.
but...
at 3 weeks old we were out alot one of the days and ended up and grandmas house where she received lots of cuddles and rocking and cooing, of course this is fine but for the 2 following days R**** wouldn't settle during the day, I would comfort and try putting her down and she would stay for about 5 mins and scream, so i took to holding her alot, in this time and she would just doze off and then 5 mins later wake and immediately start to scream, this carried on for the 2 days and then sort of eased off and she was fine again.
i found it really strange and went through all the things it could've been but could not make sense of it, but a friend thought that perhaps it was because R**** was not in her normal environment, lots of new sounds, people, being held, rocked etc.... so i thought ok maybe too much change from the norm for a newborn and she got over it.

anyway on Saturday we went to a large family gathering at grandmas house again, this time, more people, more cuddles (although I did try to keep it to a min) people kept going over to her, R**** had been in her car seat, in her carry cot and rocker and then also being held alot, swayed, inside for abit and outside for abit. So now what we have is that yesterday and today she has not settled well again during the day, she doesnt want to be put down, even if she falls asleep in my arms and then i put her down she will wake and cry 5 mins later, I am sure she will get over this again but what I am afraid of is that everytime we go somewhere for a day then I am restricted for the following couple of days to holding and constantly trying to settle R****....

am i doing something wrong here? is this just one of those things that babies do?

thanks and sorry for rambling on

Toni and R**** (5 weeks)

[Modified by: Baby J's Mommy on 06 September 2010 17:48:50 ]

Blue_xStarx · Sep 6, 2010 9:15AM

Hi Baby Js mommy,

Are you sure its not just co-incidence that she is unsettled after the visits? Could she be having a growth spurt and is waking from being extra hungry? I seem to recall when H was this age when he got like this is was nearly always to do with him needing more food.

It may well be your DD is getting a little overwhelmed with the attention and is demanding more attention from you when you get home. As she is so young you can indulge without fear of setting bad habits if you want to.

You are doing nothing wrong. It is sucha learning process you go through when you have a baby and every baby is different. I am still learning new things about DS and probably will continue to for a long time yet.

I would try a process of elimination and found the baby whisperer very good for teaching me how to 'recognise' the different types of baby cry and learn what was wrong in the early days.

xx

piggypops · Sep 6, 2010 9:22AM

our LO was the same everytime we went to the MIL he would be awul for a few days, we still have this when she babysits which is why its not often,

we ended up being very strict when we visited, if LO was content on his mat/chair etc he was NOT allowed to be picked up and mollycoddled, if he was unsettled she would have the oppertunity but she doesnt like upset babys so would just moan about never being allowed cuddles, a moaning MIL is so worth a content baby! we noticed a change very quickly and he wouldnt create on coming home like he did before,

EmilyB · Sep 6, 2010 9:41AM

I'm just like piggypops - my lo definitely is affected by visiting and being held/rocked/over stimulated - even now at almost 10 months. He loves his cuddles, but on his time not just constantly! It took me a very long time to get to the stage where I'd actually tell people to leave him be if he was playing in his playpen or something. Don't get me wrong, they're welcome to play with him, but he's a headstrong 10 month old, he doesn't need patting and rocking and cuddling! It always makes it more difficult to get him to sleep, he self-settles and has since he was teeny but doesn't do so as well if we're away or if loads of people visit. Back when he was 5.5 months he stopped sleeping, and for ages people told me it was because he was hungry. I'm now convinced it wasn't that, we went 5 hours up the M6 to the Lake District for 2 weeks and he was so unsettled he got into the habit of waking for a feed that lasted around 1 minute before he dropped off again. NOTHING else would settle him (and I tried everything!) so you're not doing anything wrong, but you may need to put your foot down and remind people that your lo isn't a toy and doesn't need constant handling! x

Raeyas_mommy · Sep 6, 2010 12:26PM

thanks for the replies.

when she starts to cry and unsettle I go through all the normal things, to eliminate the possible causes, at one point the first time she was like this I took her temperature just in case so i knew i'd tried everything...
i think i will like you say have to just be firm with people. it's hard though i think esp as it's my husbands family (mine are abroad) so I really dont want them to think i am being mean even though I try to explain.

how have your LO's been if you have let them stay with someone else for an evening or night?
I certainly wouldnt be letting her stay away overnight anytime soon at all but it 'd be nice to think in a few weeks we could leave her with someone trusted for an evening

any ideas?

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